This picture is straight out of the camera I did not even crop it! I absolutely love the deep blue of the sky and all the contrast of the flower and the wispy clouds almost wrapping around the flower. What a wonderful sign of spring! Happy sky watch fridays everyone and be sure to click on the title to this post to see other great sky pictures!
No we aren't raising arabians she just wishes she was one
On one hand you have the horseman, ranchers, livestock owners, breed associations, especially horse traders, horseshoer and many others who make a living from buying/ selling training and breeding horses. These individuals have seen a plummet in the living they were once making. They have watched there business's go under. They have horses standing in there pastures that no one wants and if they are able to sell these horses it is for a fraction of the cost they put into them. I know this sounds like it is all about money for these groups of horse people and to some extent it is, but like I said before they have a love for the horse just like anyone else they just have a more grounded view about their livestock. Yes I said livestock the horseman/ rancher etc.. they see the horse as livestock like a cow, pig or cat or dog depending on what country you are from. I know I am sounding cruel, but I'm not, I am looking open minded at both sides. Being as the horse has been a faithful companion to the people they do respect it and most treat the horse better than say a dog would be treated in china. They all have that favorite horse the one who will die on there property but they have also dealt with that rank, nasty, rearing, mean nag who instead of shooting why not send it to kill make a little money and not waste the remains. Logical thinking yes but alot of people don't agree. 
The other side of this group PETA, animal rescue groups, holly wood, horse lovers and others all shutter at the thought of their companion animal being treated like livestock. Horses to them are like dogs and cats in America and a few other country's. Americans don't eat there companion animals ( at least not publicly) they do good by them (most do, but there are alot of idiots out there). The animal lovers believe that the methods the horses are slaughtered are inhumane and cruel and granted there are probably some severe cases of animal cruelty in processing plants for any type of livestock. It saddens alot of them to see any animal killed in a way they deem as cruel. They are fighting this with good intentions but actually have made the situation worse for man and beast. For man the horse market is horrible everyone has horses and they aren't worth anything and part of that is due to over breeding but I will get into that later. For the horse the main problem is the traders are now shipping horses to Mexico where regulations are nonexistent. If they want to talk about abuse they need to be worried about the animals being shipped to Mexico. 
I think that we as nation should come together, yes I said TOGETHER and make this situation better for all. We need to all decide what is best for the horse we do owe it to them they have been our legs for thousands of years they have ran for miles until they died to get a man away from an enemy they delivered our first forms of mail, they have touched us in more ways than most any other animal. God put animals on the earth for us to use NOT ABUSE. We as humans do tend to abuse our privileges. This is coming from both the hippy in me and the cowgirl. My feeble brain has many ideas on how to solve this situation. I think sending our American horses to a foreign country for food is not necessary and that is just my opinion. but if WE use the horse say for dog food and glue for us AMERICANS than yes we need to have a kill plant open that can provide to us what WE need. The kill plants need to have strict regulations on what they will process, old, rank, crippled and regulations on the animals being humanely killed someone needs to be at these plants that is not a snake and say NO not that horse. But wait you say that won't solve much there will still be to many horses and the horse market will still be bad. That's were we need to stop all the "back yard" breeding I am sorry if you are a back yard breeder, but there are so many people out there breeding a horse just because it has balls it is absurd. Everything bred needs to be registered and the breed associations need to come together and have committees and people who decide what horse should be a stallion and how many mares he should breed. So, sounds too crazy and a little like it is infringing on a persons rights as a livestock owner, but just remember I would like to see a situation that makes everyone happy (somewhat) . I think it could be done if everyone would just look at the other side of the situation. All the large breeders who breed and breed and breed till they find that one "perfect" horse that is not necessary anymore with this plan either because the breeds will improve on there own. With a committee of many people who know horses from each breed deciding what stallion should be bred to what mare the breed will improve, the horse population will go down and the price of horses will come up. The animal lovers will have a strict humane way to euthanize the horses that are slaughtered and used for us and everyone will live happily ever after AMEN 
Today I woke up to a beautiful, crisp morning. The fog in our valley with the sun shining through it was spectacular. The cows waiting for the morning feeding, standing majestically in the bright morning.
All my weed's closed up hoping to survive a late spring frost.
Our garden waiting patiently for a plant to grow was happy to feed this bug with the large amount of manure and compost placed in it.
This is our garden spot Patrick won the battle I wanted a big garden he wanted a small raised bed flower garden.
We used old railroad ties. We had two ties long by one tie wide. old railroad ties work wonderfully for a raised garden and often you can get them for free. When you use old railroad ties you are recycling, saving a tree and saving money it can't get any better than that.
